Taught by Carol Wyche
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The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
- Albert Einstein
In September of this year, I began working with a few clients in the Houston area, designing individual programs which they carry out at home on their own schedule. I went there at the invitation of a chiropractor there who knows my work and wanted a few of her clients to have a personalized gentle exercise program. While there I gave a presentation on Restorative Yoga and met both with clients from the chiropractor and as a result of the presentation. I plan to continue traveling to Houston at 6 to 8 week intervals to work with people there. If you are in the Houston area and interested in having a personal yoga set designed for you, contact me via E-mail cjwyche@io.com or by phone at 512-458-9709 to schedule a time. My current rate is $40 per hour. I will work with you to plan a restorative or gentle hatha yoga set you can do in your home with items you own or can purchase easily, and maintain contact to be a resource for you in adjusting your set as your needs change. One or more sets can be designed for each person, possibly ones for home and ones for travel, or a very relaxing set and a more energizing set. If you are in the health field and interested in what I can do for your clients, please contact me via e-mail or phone and I can put you in touch with the chiropractor I work with in Houston for her recommendation.
Current Austin program changes:
At the end of each month semi-private students make appointments for the dates and times they will attend, pay for only those days and times at the shared class rate, then I arrange the studio schedule accordingly. You are always welcome to talk to me, e-mail me, or visit a semi-private class to experience Restorative Yoga, but itŐs a good idea to call or e-mail ahead of time to be sure of the dates and times for the month.
Student Options
Restorative Yoga
Private Classes
Individual Private Sessions are available for one to one attention, using either Restorative Yoga or more active forms of Hatha, or a mix, for your regular personal practice. Private sessions cost $40 per hour at a studio or at the studentŐs home. My goal is to help each student develop a personal home practice.
Two to four people may join to make a semi-private class. Semi-private sessions are 75 minutes long.
Current Semi-Private Class
Mondays 5:15 to 6:30 pm.
There are still some openings in this class. Contact me if you are interested in joining. E-mail cjwyche@io.com or by phone at 512-458-9709.
Semi-Private classes cost $20 per session up to 3 sessions per month and $15 per session for 4 or more per month. Semi-private students schedule classes at the end of each month for the following month and pay for only those classes they plan to attend, then I arrange the studio time accordingly.
Semi-private session and most private sessions meet at:
Tree of Life Yoga at Sol Studio
3400 Kerbey Lane
Austin, Tx
Link shows a map
Take Home Yoga Series
This is a one to one teaching program with a goal of designing and teaching a specific yoga set planned for the person taking the series, to meet their specific needs and goals. The series starts with a two hour session and follows up with 5 weekly one and a half hour sessions. Thus the series would continue for 6 weeks and give the student 9.5 hours of one to one instruction, and a personal yoga practice set, with alternative sets as needed. The cost is $250 for the series. Students who have completed the series may schedule one to one sessions at the rate of $30 per hour to change their yoga sets as their needs change. Interested individuals may call or e-mail and arrange to meet with the teacher to discuss the possibility of taking this series.
Articles
Gentle Hatha Classes
What is Restorative Yoga?
Pranayama - Control of the Breath
About Carol
Gentle Hatha Classes
My intent is that my students should learn to feel their bodies and know their own minds, in a calming and physically safe environment. Individual classes are varied according to the needs of those attending that day, but will in general include a stretching and gentle workout of the whole body, head to toe. We generally begin with a quiet chat, so people can tell me how they are doing that day, and then we often start off with a breathing exercise and a head to toe stretching and flexing of the body. The session starts slowly, becomes more active steadily, then cools and slows and finally ends with a long resting pose to enable the body to incorporate the day's physical/mental learning.
I teach a gentle meditative style of Hatha yoga. There are many styles of yoga, all described as Hatha yoga, but in reality quite different in approach and energy. Classes can be for exercise or stress release, either energizing or calming. Some hatha hatha yoga classes focus on one position and getting that position exactly right, then moving to the next position, and getting that one exactly right. Some hatha classes focus on moving rapidly from one position to another and become essentially an aerobic workout. Yoga flow classes emphasize moving steadily from one posture to another. Slow flow classes move from one posture to another, but do it slowly and steadily, allowing and encouraging the body to gradually stretch into the posture as it is held, for 5 breaths, 10 breaths, 20 breaths, and by its emphasis on the breath as a counting tool, encourages awareness of the breath and its relationship to the bodyŐs motions. Body, mind, and emotion are interconnected. What eases one will ease the rest.
What is Restorative Yoga?
Restorative yoga is a development from the Iyengar school of yoga. The Iyengar school focuses on correct posture and positioning of the body. Iyengar style yoga has evolved a large variety of pads, props, straps, ropes and the like to help beginners learn to feel how their body ought to be in different positions. Restorative Yoga uses many of these same props and pads in physically supported positions to allow a person to fully relax while stretching and opening their bodies. The emphasis is on release of muscle tension and increase of flexibilty rather than on development of strength and aerobic capacity. Restorative Yoga helps to reduce the effects of chronic physical, mental and emotional stress on the body by inducing a deep relaxation, allowing the parasympathetic nervous system to work properly. Positions can be varied according to the individuals flexibility or lack and modifications are readily made for individual differences, in height or weight or current physical state. Therefore it is excellent for people who are recovering from injuries and illness or who are not injured but are dealing with the effects of severe or long term stress. The teacher and the student work together to design a series of postures and to work out exactly what combination of supports are needed to induce a sense of ease in the body, whether as part of a regular class or as individual work at home.
A typical Restorative class consists of 5 to 10 different postures, including backbends, forward bends, twists and gentle inversions, like legs up the wall and legs up on a chair, or even just a little up, on a bolster. The teacher chooses the poses and sets the order and the length, and tells the students how to set up the standard combination of pads and supports for each position, then works with each student to adjust the padding and supports to the student’s individual needs and desires. It is a general guideline of this sort of yoga that there will be no extreme stretches or positions and that each person may choose in each case to use the teacher’s choice of position or another or none. The student may always choose to come out of the position sooner than the set time or stay in longer if that position just feels so easeful that she simply wants to stay. The positions are generally held for anything from three to twenty minutes at a time, with the median being 5 to 7 minutes, so it is worth the trouble to be sure the student is comfortable and is not at maximum stretch. The body, feeling supported by the props and pads, will gradually release built up muscle tension, easing the joints, lengthening shortened muscles and releasing both physical and emotional tensions.
This is a very personal style of yoga and it is expected that the student will be a full partner with the teacher in determining what works best for their own body. Especially in the case of recovery from illness or injury, the student should take into consideration what their doctor may have told them about needs and limits of their own body, as well as how the student is feeling any particular day.
About Carol
Yoga is the best form of exercise I have ever found, and I've tried quite a few. I am 62 years old. neither young nor strong, and have dealt with old poorly healed injuries for most of my life. I was physically and mentally extremely tense when I again began taking yoga classes eight years ago, but over the years yoga has slowly seeped into me, eased the tension, loosened the muscles and joints, taught me how to breathe, encouraged me to meditate and to be calm. Yoga taught me to go to my limit and no farther, and that my limits expand with practice. My favorite teacher, Shannon Potts-Hickey, of Rolling Hills Yoga, taught all her students to take alternative postures and to be accepting of personal limits as they changed day to day. Over time yoga proved so helpful for me that I decided to become a teacher myself, in part because so many classes in Austin seem to be for the very active, and so few for those who wanted a gentler and more meditative approach. I decided in the spring of 2006 that I wanted to teach yoga, both hatha and restorative yoga, so began a serious study of yoga. I have my Yoga Alliance certification, at the 200 hour level. In July of 2006, I also took a course in San Francisco from Judith Lasater, the originator of Restorative Yoga. Restorative Yoga is a tremendous help for the ill, the injured and the very stressed. Its focus is releasing the tension in the body, and letting go at the same time, of the tension in the mind. Since I began adding Restorative Yoga at home to the more active hatha classes I have seen a great improvement in my physical flexibility and mental resilience. This style of yoga, in conjunction with gentle hatha classes, has helped me calm myself and release old injuries and ingrained myofascial tension so I know it works. I want to spread the word to everyone who would benefit from it.
I am semi-retired, not working full time but too active to simply loaf. During my working years I was a special education teacher at the Austin State Hospital, and later alternated between housewife and adult education, teaching mostly GED preparation and English as a Second Language, sometimes paid and sometimes as a serious long term volunteer, and was also a fiber artist, teaching creativity, design and specific skills in fiber arts. I have always been a teacher, one way or another, and continue to teach - now in a different field.